Russian cosmonauts have grown salad in orbit

Frame: NASA

Russian cosmonauts successfully completed an experiment on growing lettuce in a special Veggie container. This is reported on the NASA website.

Valery Korzun and Maxim Suraev managed to grow a variety of leaf lettuce related to cabbage plants on the ISS.

As part of the experiment cycle “Plants”, the Lada greenhouses, created specifically for the ISS, are used. The nutritional cushion inside Veggie provides the plants with the substances they need, and the pink LED light allows the photosynthesis process to proceed properly.

Space garden can be a source of food for the crew. This will be especially true, as noted at NASA, when astronaut teams will go on long missions, such as Mars. Also, experts have paid attention to the relaxing effect of caring for plants.

The Mashable portal has calculated that breeding lettuce on board instead of delivering food from Earth will bring substantial economic benefits and will save approximately 25 thousand dollars per kilogram of food.

The next stage of testing the container Veggie started on the International Space Station 20 July, when the American astronaut Scott Kelly received the watering, photographing and recording progress of plants on duty.

The Plants-2 experiment, like previous experiments with growing plants, is designed to help NASA explore other planets in the future. According to scientists, information obtained during container testing will teach people to more effectively engage in agriculture in conditions of limited resources, for example, when water is scarce.

NASA launched a plant growing program aboard the station after an American astronaut and chemical engineer Don Petit built a tsukini on the ISS in 2013, on his own initiative.